Groupon sees surge in subscribers, scrubs contentious fiscal metric

Daily deals website Groupon is reportedly set to jack in a controversial accounting metric that it previously considered to be a good way to measure how well the company was performing.

According to All Things Digital, which cites sources close to the matter, Groupon will tweak its S-1 public offering filing to scrub out a metric called adjusted consolidated segment operating income (ACSOI).

It is understood the Chicago-based Groupon, which was co-founded by Andrew Mason, faced regulatory pressure to remove the metric from its filing that was submitted in June.

Separately, the coupon company has seen its subscription list double in the six months since it rejected a $6bn takeover offer from Google.

Groupon, which filed for an IPO in June in a move to raise $750m, reportedly has 115 million subscribers, according to Reuters.

At the end of last year, that list stood at around 50 million sign-ups.

Groupon has deals with around 57,000 local merchants based in 43 different countries and could be valued as high as $25bn. Sales at the firm rose to $644.7m in the first quarter of this year compared with $44.2m for the same period in 2010.

It sold 28.1 million coupons in Q1, but the company notched up a $102.7m loss in the quarter.

Groupon's potential valuation would blow Google's $6bn bid out of the water. That said, the company now faces competition from, among other contenders, Google, after it launched its own Offers product to compete with Groupon. ®